Emergent Participation in DIY Designed Bike Trails

This paper details early findings from our exploratory research on bike trails and the people who build, care for, and use them. The paper contributes to understandings of participation in punk and DIY cultures by engaging with a context outside the traditional realms of PD to learn about existing forms of (non-)participation. We outline three themes from the initial field work: First, the kinds of participation involved in designing and building the trails, includ- ing non-participation of those outside the community. We engage with the problems of participation in a DIY (un)commons that is often illegal and therefore fragile. Second, we look to grassroots moves to increase participation in these spaces and the reasons for doing so. Finally, we speculate on an aim to develop a symme- try, whereby academic attention to these spaces and practices may contribute to the community rather than only extract information.